Brown / Spence "Platonic friendship - Am I my brother's keeper"
bathing beach opened at 2pm
Diary pages from this date
Another month - I've had 15 months of it now in this tiny room. Luckily we are still just 2 of us - I'd hate it if a new third man was put in but I couldn't complain.
Food has improved - our flour ration has been put up to 4.22oz per day so we'll get decent bread again.
Bathing starts today, and Hattori is in camp making an official opening of the beach but I haven't gone and I don't expect I'll ever bathe. I've no costume for one thing. Going back to food - there are no more Red Cross tins so Fisher and I have started on our reserve - only 6 tins - so we can only have one a week. I have 4 more of my own. Our money allowance has been stopped however and D.O.K. if we will get any more, so we can't buy things now. Dora has lent me 10 Yen and says I can have 10 more - Bertie can send money into her. The Japs agree that soldiers must be paid but not civilians.
The weather has got really warm now but it's very pleasant in Stanley, and we only wear shorts and a shirt. We had a blackout for several nights last week and that was rather unpleasant, For they interpreted it so strictly that you could have SOME light and suffocate - or no light and then have air. We went to bed very early.
I have had the Auditor (Bremner of Lowe Binghams) in this morning checking my accounts - it's the end of another quarter. I've done Treasurer for 9 months now. I've no more news Honey so I'll shut up I've just had my 200 word letter to you typed - we even mustn't write our signature! Love.
I forgot blood count is better - 3,980,000 but Haemoglobin still only 67%. The count is the number of red cells and the percentage is their redness! I need more iron so I'm having a tonic.
Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, who has remained uninterned to carry on his work as Medical Officer, is arrested early in the morning by the Kempeitai, who believe he is the head of British espionage in Hong Kong.
The arrest is the beginning of a long ordeal for Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, who, despite prolonged torture, refuses to incriminate himself or name a single one of the many associates in his real work, which is not spying but organising 'illegal' relief for the camps and the dependants of Volunteers left without any means of support in occupied Hong Kong.
The French Hospital is 'locked down' after his arrest and thoroughly searched for evidence of espionage. Dr. Frederick Bunje, a well-known Hong Kong physician, is taken into custody, probably at the same time as Selwyn-Clarke. Public Health official Alexander Christie Sinton is arrested about midday. Accounts of these events are understandably confused, and different sources list other arrests although none can be regarded as certain: Dr. Murdo Nicholson, Dr. Mackie (probably living in Robinson Rd. at the time) and Selwyn-Clarke's assistant Mr. Frank Angus. Anyone who is arrested, other than Selwyn-Clarke, Bunje and Sinton, is soon released.
A number of Selwyn-Clarke's Chinese or Eurasian colleagues and helpers are also held, for example, Dr. Arthur Woo, a radium expert, Helen Ho, organiser of much of the relief into Bowen Road Hospital and Constance Lam, whose persistence in sending him extra food while in prison will later be credited by Selwyn-Clarke with saving his life.
As May 2 comes to an end, most of those arrested are in the Kempeitai headquarters at the Supreme Court, their colleagues, friends and families at the French Hospital are in an agony of worry, and everyone is wondering who will be the next to be arrested.
All over town, in the bankers' hotel as well as in my house, in a hundred hovels and tenement rooms, were people holding their breath, terrified for Selwyn's safety and for their own.
Sources:
https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/the-french-hospital-a…
All over town: Emily Hahn, China To Me, 1986 ed., 405
For Hahn's account of Hilda Selwyn-Clarke's behaviour at this time see
https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/emily-hahn-as-source-…
Note: see entry for May 7. The fact that Angus, Nicholson and Mackie were sent to Stanley with those definitely not arrested casts a question mark over the BAAG reports that they were taken into custody.
Sensation. Arthur Woo ((well-known and respected doctor)) and Scamp taken. George She also, and many others. Seems like clean-up of population associating with foreigners.